


Wayne Manor

by Holdt



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DC Extended Universe
Genre: Blackouts, Halloween, Haunted Houses, Other, Trick or Treat 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:21:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27248719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Holdt/pseuds/Holdt
Summary: Something haunts the Manor...but it haunts Bruce more.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 15
Collections: Batsupes Tricks & Treats 2020





	Wayne Manor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lmao_thunder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lmao_thunder/gifts).



It begins small. A wisp of sound in an empty room. A lilt of laughter in the gardens when Bruce knew he was alone. The ripple of movement in an upper window when he was outside, on the upper walls. 

It  _ began  _ small. Which is why Bruce is unprepared when it abruptly consumes his every nighttime thought. From tiny beginnings it courses through the Manor, following or preceding Bruce—he can never be quite sure—until he is seldom alone in his privacy. 

It whispers in the walls, sometimes. A soft crooning song that lulls Bruce to sleep in the suffocating echoes of the now empty Manor. He fights it from time to time, but it always wins eventually, when his guard is down. It cycles through the vents, whispering his name on a cloud of jasmine and fresh linen, daring him to open his eyes to the merciless dark. Bruce has seen shadows moving in his room, an endless dance that whisks between seen and unseen.

And the endless  _ scratching _ at his door...

Bruce thinks he’s going mad. But no, night after night the shadows dance and the whispers come. Night after night his hair is caressed to his scalp in a dry embrace. Night after night, figures stalk his walls, a woman and a man shaped being. Night after night, Bruce closes his eyes to the sight of what cannot be and forces himself into a fitful, unrestful sleep. 

He’s thought of telling Alfred about it of course, but it seems such a small problem, such an inevitably  _ Bruce  _ problem, that he’s denied himself the comfort of Alfred’s guidance. After all, what would Alfred think of these imaginings, these morbid fascinations that Bruce has, and what would Alfed feel forced to do, on Bruce’s behalf? It's too much to quantify, and a debt to owe, so Bruce keeps his silence at night and in the day. No matter how much Alfred understands, surely whispers in the dark and shadows are a step too far.

Bruce isn’t the only one who senses a change in the Manor after the funeral. One by one, staff members report feeling watched or followed. Cook reports a strange fouling of the meat in the long freezer, something that never happens when Alfred is the one manning the ovens. The maids start to refuse to enter rooms alone, complaining of the chill. One by one, Alfred is forced to let junior staff members go until only he and Bruce remain. The silence fuels Bruce’s desire for some sort of justice for his parent’s deaths; he reads all he can, reviews the police documents again and again.

_ Avenge us,  _ the shadows whisper, when he’s exhausted and run down from his endless research.  _ You’ve failed us _ . 

The worst of it though, is when Bruce is that tired, when his eyes are drooping and his limbs are heavy, it's his own shadow that moves. It walks without him, follows him and taunts him, grows ears and sharp teeth, becomes inhuman in its elongated state. It strokes at the back of his neck, wails and whispers in a harsh guttural tongue that scrapes at his eardrums, chasing him down into sleep. Drives him to do things he should not do, to risk himself in ventures that scar deep into the core of Bruce, things that  _ destroy _ Bruce.

Darkness—total darkness—becomes Bruce’s refuge.

As he gets older, sometimes Bruce awakens on the edge of the roof, muscles locked in place, heart thumping in his chest, staring out into the night. Exposed to the elements. Barefoot in the garden. Alfred finds him wandering the halls in a trance. Once he comes to himself, staring at the face of the old grandfather clock in the library, hand half-raised, wondering not where, but  _ why _ he is where he is, shaking away the cobwebs of a dream life he can barely grasp. That's when Bruce sees it—a moving fracture in the glass of the clock’s face, a  _ reflection _ of something, some  _ thing  _ in the room with him. Something that didn't want to be seen.

He covers the mirrors in his room after that.

Sometimes Alfred watches him strangely, as if waiting for a cue that Bruce is never sure how to give. Sometimes he could swear he hears Alfred’s voice, speaking through the vents at night.

Bruce doesn't throw parties at night in the Manor anymore, and when anyone asks he tells them the truth: it’s frightfully unwelcoming. Of course everyone laughs and wonders what he’s done with the place, but the truth is, not much beyond proper maintenance. The walls of Wayne Manor resist change...the  _ house _ doesn’t like even the most minute differences in decor or staging. It’s comforting to Bruce, in a way. Home remains home no matter how far he roams, or what he gets up to. The Manor is always ready to take Bruce back into her blood-drenched bosom. Like Gotham, the Manor never changes.

Even if Bruce were to try to explain the real truth of the matter, no one would comprehend it. 

The Manor screams as it burns. Howls. The wood of the walls shrieking as the beam falls onto Bruce. It wants him to stay, to burn with it and only Alfred’s brusque commands force Bruce to move his limbs to comply. To  _ push  _ against the heavy wood trapping him to the floor, to hope for more. To fight,  _ finally _ , against the dark forces that hold him immobile. The shadows race through the halls, and Bruce hears Alfred whisper a short prayer under his breath, as they make it through the flaming foyer and into the dark night. 

The lakehouse Bruce builds in the shadowy time between is pristine. The only reflections he sees in its glass walls are his own. His shadow keeps step with him, and the only ghosts are those in Bruce’s mind. He commissions the rebuild for the Manor after giving it some thought—he finds himself lonely in the times when Alfred is occupied. He makes certain to have everything the same, same dimensions, the same hallways. The same sound buffered carpeted floors. 

Everything is the same, and yet  _ nothing _ is. He misses the scratchings in the walls, at his door. He misses the shadows, ever dancing in his periphery. He even misses his own shadow, looming large and threatening, courting him. He wonders what messages he’s missed, what riddle he’s failed to solve. The Manor is home, and yet it is no longer a home Bruce understands. He doesn't wake to the darkness, barefoot and wandering any more. It no longer calls to him, no longer whispers secrets in the dark. 

Instead Bruce stares at the clock face long into the night, longing for justice, and criticizes himself for his fear.


End file.
